Blue Ball Country Club
This painting is another in the painting study of unusually named towns surrounding Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The town’s name has a suggestive meaning, evoking the slang term “blue ball” referring to the sexual condition of temporary testicular and prostate fluid congestion. Blue Ball is often listed among the “delightfully named towns” in Pennsylvania Dutch Country, alongside Intercourse, Mount Joy, Lititz, Bird-in-Hand, Fertility and Paradise.
The name originates from the Blue Ball Hotel, built more than two hundred years ago, which stood on the southeastern corner of the PA 23-US 322 crossroads. In the early 18th century, John Wallace built a small building in Earl Town at the intersection of two Indian trails, French Creek Path (Route 23) and Paxtang (Route 322). He hung a blue ball out front from a post and called it “The Sign of the Blue Ball.” Locals soon began calling the town “Blue Ball” after the inn.
The town of Blue Ball is not much more than a crossroads in the country. So, in the artists’ whimsical fashion, of course this town would be significant enough to warrant its own country club. The painting imagines plain people golfing but with a twist. Half of their clothing is that of plain people, but the other half represents the over-the-top vibrant clothing of professional golfers. In highlighting this, the painting whimsically imagines what a weekly golf outing might look like for a trio of friends trying to have a foot in each world.